Mutual friends feature on Facebook not secure enough

Often admired for bringing people together, the mutual friends feature on Facebook actually creates myriad security risks and privacy concerns, according to a University of Pittsburgh study published in the journal Computers and Security.

The study findings show that even though users can tailor their privacy settings, hackers can still find private information through mutual friends features.

"The mutual friends feature is not created in tandem with privacy setting designs, and inadequate thought with regards to security and privacy issues has been given to it," said James Joshi, principal investigator of the study.

"With such a huge user base in such systems, a minor privacy breach can have a significant impact," said Joshi, who is also an associate professor of information assurance and security at Pittsburg's School of Information Sciences.